For the past decade, political bloggers have become important watchdogs and critics of the mainstream media. But the blogosphere is largely white and upper-middle class. Writers who don’t fit into that mold are diligently building up a Web presence, gaining influence and slowly changing how communities of color are perceived. Five DailyKos bloggers representing the African-American, Latino and Native American communities spoke at the Netroots Nation conference on a panel called Promoting People of Color in the Progressive Blogosphere. The bloggers talked about how they got started as political “ranters,” the unique challenges they face as bloggers of color, and the rewards that come with writing about issues they are passionate about. The featured speakers, named here by their DailyKos handles, were: Black Kos, shanikka,navajo, TexMex, and Deoliver47. Watch the entire panel below:

How can the poor, who often have limited or no access to the Internet, become content providers on the Web? What’s being done to help those who can’t afford computers get their concerns and messages across over the Internet? These issues and more were discussed last week at the Netroots Nation panel Building a National Broadband Plan: How Activists in California Are Bridging the Digital Divide. Featured speakers were Sasha Constanza-Chock, founder of VozMob (Voces Moviles, Mobile Voices); Madelou Gonzalez, a VozMob member and volunteer for the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California; Amalia Deloney, Grassroots Policy Director for the Center for Media Justice; and Ruth Williams, Community Investment Officer for ZeroDivide. LA Media Reform’s own Will Coley served as moderator. Watch the entire session below:

Nice! I hope we can get some of those (all!) speakers at our upcoming summit… Access to Broadband as topic for our panel?

As stated above, barriers to broadband include access and affordability…”One of the more hidden barriers is relevancy. For people to desire broadband generally, they must understand why it’s important to have it. This understanding is strongest when people become generators and producers of their own content. We found that content’s level of sophistication and the type of content is less important than the times people create. So the amount of time you spend creating, the amount of things that you do create, is more important to your understanding and desire for broadband. ”